"THE HOLE IN THE WALL" 2011

The artwork by Wolfgang Hainke is niched between the new and the old building of the Kunsthalle Bremen. „The Hole in the Wall“ reaches downwards from the first floor to the groundfloor and is located between the new concrete building and the former exterior -, now interior facade.

When the visitor faces the artwork, he has the former sandstone facade of the building to his back.

A sandstone tube sawn out of the old facade forms the lining of the wall opening. The opening

is slightly pointing downwards. The sandstone tube lines up precisely with the plastered, white painted wall. As well as the opposite wall, the sandstone is untreaded. The visitor has no access to the cavity. Only a peculiar oval opening in the wall reveals the existence of the artwork.

The cavity works as a storage for documents and a number of items visitors are able to deposit there.

However the „black hole“ is installed at a height at which visitors are not able to look inside. To deposit their items, visitors have to stand up on tiptoes. The cavity is an archive that takes the documents and objects and never again releases them. That way the content of the „Hole in the Wall“ is safely stored. The different beloved items of our every day life become an invisible part of the Kunsthalle Bremen.

The artist Wolfgang Hainke got his inspiration from “Genizah“ (Hebrew: storage). Originally the term “Genizah“ comes from the Persian and means “to hide“ or “to put away“. Later, it became a noun for a place where one puts things, and is perhaps best translated as “archive“ or “ repository“.

“Genizah“ was a place where people kept Hebrew-language books or objects of religious topic that became useless over time. A safe store-room or depository in Jewish synagogues with objects and writings containing the name of God, as it was, according to Jewish law, forbidden to throw them away before they could recieve a proper cemetery burial.

By far the best-known genizah, which is famous for both its size and spectacular contents, is the “Cairo Genizah“: A collection of almost 280.000 Jewish manuscript fragments found in the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, presently Old Cairo, Egypt. A sensational discovery which gave scientists the possibility to get an impressive insight and important information about the everyday life of a century-old Jewish community.

And one day, also the hidden collection of worn-out items in Bremen will reveal information about our everyday life.